The Learning MatchMaker

                    Teach Your Participants to Excel Better

A few days back I came across a very informative and enlightening article written by Dr. Kon Sen Chong (managing director of CEO Solutions). It spoke about the effective training programme that closes the performance gaps between what workers can do and what they must do. And so today I would like to share the summarized version and my understandings with you all.

Teach Your Participants to Excel Better

Whenever you want to undergo any training, either for you or for your staff, there are some common questions which pop up in your mind more than a dozen times.

“What will be the impact of the training?” , “Will it improve the performance of the trainees?” and, “Will the training bring the measurable differences to the company’s bottom line?”

Therefore it is the responsibility of the trainers to provide training which shall meet all their objectives. And to do so they shall focus on 6 main areas such as: 

• Determine the performance gap
which can be perfectly taken care by preparing a training needs analysis (TNA) by conducting surveys and interviews with the participants and their superiors. The TNA identifies the capabilities of the participants and their lacking as well.

• The next best thing is to
know your learners even before you develop your training programme - such as their job roles, literacy levels, age group and other relevant information. As your participants will be adults, an understanding of Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy (the art and science of teaching adults) is important. For example adults have accumulated experience which they like to share with others. You just have to find ways to make the sharing happen. 

• Motivation
is what everything goes on with, and so to lighten it up in your learners you must make your every word stand out to them. For example you could say: “Learn this technique of coaching and you will become a better team leader, enjoy your work more and get promoted faster.”

• Organizing your content
is a tricky but the most influential part. As your modules must be logically sequenced and must build upon next. Always starts with the objectives and gradually highlights them by not putting too many in one module as this could overwhelm the trainees. Training does not only stick’s around until the particular time span of the event finishes but also far after it. So as to ensure the impact of the training remains long-term the trainees must be provided with the useful support material such as handouts, workbooks and reference guides to ensure the continuous learning.

• Evaluating and improving your training programme
is a must to do for every trainer. Global training consultants Don and Jim Kirkpatrick have suggested training evaluations at four levels – reaction, learning, behavior and results. Which means that to ensure the continuous improvement on the programmes offered by any trainer, the evaluation form at the end of training must involve more precisely about positive response from the trainees, was the information useful and worth learning, changes in behavior and expectation of the impact on the business by the changed behavior.

There must be a continuous check on evaluating your training programme’s effectiveness no matter if you are a veteran or a new trainer.

Hope my sharing and insights taken from the writer Dr. Kon Seng Chong was helpful to you all. Do let me know about your experiences and thoughts on how to make the current Learning & Development industry much more effective & successful than it currently is.